There is something about a quarrel of women which excites the scorn of every chronicler, an insidious contempt for the weaker half of the creation which probably no one would own to, lying dormant in the minds of the race generally, even of women themselves. Had Anne been a king of moderate abilities, and Marlborough the friend and guide to whom he owed his prosperity and fame, the relationship would have been noble and honorable to both; and when the struggle began, the strenuous efforts of the great general to secure the coöperation of ministers with whom he could work, and whose support would have helped toward the carrying out of his great plans for the glory of his country and the destruction of her enemies, would, whether the historical critic approved of them or not, have at least secured his respect and a dignified treatment. But when it is Sarah of Marlborough, with all the defects of temper that we know in her, who, while her lord fights abroad, has to fight for him at home, to scheme his enemies out of, and his friends into, power, to keep her hold upon her mistress by every means that her imagination can devise, the idea that some nobler motive than mere self-aggrandizement may be in the effort occurs to no one, and the hatred of political enmity is mingled with all the ridicule that spiteful wit can discharge upon a feminine squabble. Lady Marlborough was far from being a perfect woman. She had a fiery temper and a stinging tongue. When she was thwarted at the very moment of apparent victory, and found herself impotent where she had been all-powerful, her fury was like a torrent against which there was no standing. But with these patent defects it ought to be allowed her that the object for which she struggled was not only a perfectly legitimate, but a noble one. What the great William had spent his life and innumerable campaigns in endeavoring to do, against all the discouragements of frequent failure, Marlborough was doing, with a matchless and almost unbroken success. It was no shame to either the general or the general’s wife to believe, as William did, that this was the greatest work of the time, and could alone secure the safety of England as well as of her allies. And the gallant stand of Lady Marlborough for the party and the statesmen who were likely to carry out this object, deserved some better interpretation from history than it has ever received. And it cannot be said that there was anything petty in Anne’s [Illustration: THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. ENGRAVED BY J. H. E. WHITNEY, FROM AN ENGRAVING BY PIETER VAN GUNST, AFTER PAINTING BY ADRIAAN VANDER WERFF.]